Brrrr..it's cold

Yes, it's mornings like today that make me start thinking about heading north for the winter. There's a definite chill in the air, and the high cloud is making the sun thin and not very cheery. Captain Bligh, who hails from Queensland, tells me that it's been hot and sticky up in his part of the world. Give me hot and sticky any day!

Anyway, that's enough complaining. It's time to move on to the business of the day, which is, as promised, the topic of Safety Gear.  There are those (who shall remain nameless at least for the moment) who say that all that stuff about safety is just boring and uninteresting. Well, I guess it might be....right up until the moment that you need it. Then you will get very interested, very quickly... just ask anyone who has fallen overboard in bad seas what they think of the importance of their safety gear. A lot people say "it will never happen to me", but the statistics show otherwise. It does happen to a lot of people, and those who are prepared are much more likely to live to tell the tale.

Safety gear is much more than just lifejackets and EPIRBS of course. It encompasses everything from AIS transponders to navigation equipment,  marine radios and liferafts. So this is what we have on Endless Summer, together with some of my thoughts about why this equipment will be handy on our upcoming voyage.

AIS transponder: The Furuno FA50 fitted to Endless Summer is a Class B AIS (Automatic Identification System) capable of exchanging navigation and ship data between Endless Summer and other ships or coastal stations. This means that Endless Summer will see and be seen by most commercial ships and by other similarly equipped vessels. We will however be relying very much on the best device ever invented for collision avoidance, that is, the so-called "Mark One eyeball".


DSC radios: Endless Summer now has two Digital Selective Calling (DSC) radios, the main 25W Icom located on the flybridge, and a neat 5W handheld. DSC is a means of quickly establishing initial contact (eg for distress) between stations, so the DSC is a kind of wake-up alarm to alert nearby vessels that we need to talk to them. Once contact has been made, communications on a nominated VHF voice channel are used to pass messages, 


Liferaft: The liferaft is made for 6 persons and has a hydrostatic release, so that the liferaft will launch itself in the unfortunate event that it becomes submerged. The liferaft is secured to the forward deck and you can see it in one of the photos in yesterday's blog.

Stormy PFD jacket - Photo courtesy of Stormy

Life Jackets: We have 6 inflatable lifejackets on board, 5 yoke type and one Stormy Jacket PFD. I have been a fan of Stormy for some years now. Their motto is "Designed to be worn not stowed" and this has become my motto as well, especially when boating alone or at times of heightened risk. If the weather stays cold or if it starts to rain I'll be cosy and safe in my jacket. Another great thing about the Stormy jacket is that the arms zip out if the weather warms up, turning the full jacket into a handy sleeveless vest.

ResqLink+ PLB - Photo courtesy of ACR

Vessel EPIRB: We have the mandatory 406MHz EPIRB, which transmits both 406Mz signal for satellite tracking, as well as the 121.5 MHz homing signal for tracking by rescue authorities after the initial satellite alert.

Personal EPIRB: Sea-Dog and I have invested in ResQLink+  personal locator beacons.  These amazing little devices transmit a 406MHz signal for location by satellites, a 121.5MHz homing signal, an an automatic strobe light. They have an onboard GPS which means that if help is needed, the authorities will have an accurate fix on position. The device is really small, weighing 153g and small enough to be easily carried in a pocket. Oh, and it also floats!

SOLAS strobe: Just in case we get into trouble at night, we have two Firefly3 SOLAS strobe lights. These have a high intensity Xenon strobe light that creates a flash which is visible for at least 1 nautical mile (1.9km).

Other stuff: Endless Summer is also equipped with other statutory (both NSW and QLD) safety equipment such as fire extinguishers, navigation lights, bilge pumps, charts, compasses etc.  On the subject of differing regulations between NSW and QLD, Captain Bligh informed us today of the new QLD Department of Transport regulations regarding safety equipment stowage. To satisfy the new rules, lifejackets and safety gear are required to be in a 'grab bag' and handy to the exit once we enter Queensland waters. This is a good idea, because if you need it, it's not much good having all of the safety gear stuck in some hold in the bowels of the boat.

Till next time,

Happy (and Safe) boating,

Navman

PS For the record, please note again that the views and opinions expressed above are my personal views about safety equipment and should not be relied upon by others. Every sea-going situation is different, and you should do your own research as to your personal requirements.

The mechanics are here.....

Well the mechanics arrived today as promised, but it was a bit of a mixed bag of results.....

Firstly, the new temperature gauges they had ordered didn't come with the right cables, so they couldn't be fitted. New gauges on a 5 year old boat? Yes, I wondered about that too. The story is that the standard Caribbean gauges for temperature, oil pressure etc are apparently "notoriously unreliable". Anyway, they are to be replaced with Murphy brand gauges, if they ever come with the right cables.

Secondly, the engine alignment. The mechanics confirmed that this was not required, but only of course after they had done the work. I hope they haven't disturbed anything, because the boat was running very sweetly before anything was touched....

Now to the good news of the day.....One of the 1/8" studs on the starboard raw water pump snapped while the mechanic was getting it off to change the impeller. Why was this good news? Well if we had to be changing the impeller at sea for any reason, it would have been impossible to remove the broken stud from the impeller housing. It was just as well it happened now, so that the stud could be removed in the workshop.  Just shows that regular maintenance can prevent problems. Examination of the stud showed that the failure was due to fatigue, with the failure initiating at the top of the screw thread. This will be something to watch in future services.

The batteries on the boat were also replaced even though they were not showing any issues. A 1500nm journey will undoubtedly shake the batteries around a bit, so it's good to know that they are new and therefore reliable.

Endless Summer sitting quietly at her home jetty - Photo by Marina

Now to the generator....The mechanics confirmed what we suspected, that is, that the problem is electrical rather than mechanical. It's an Onan 4KVA generator, and the fault code which is shown when the engine stops says that the problem is due to overvoltage. We have been promised that an electrical person will be on the boat on Tuesday to sort it out. This seems to be the most significant hurdle we have to face before we can leave. In keeping with modern thinking, Endless Summer has no alternative means of cooking, and I'm sure the crew won't be eating cold food out of cans for the whole trip north.  Captain Bligh won't have a mutiny, he'll BE the mutiny!

Anyway, it was not bad weather here today, so Sea-Dog, Marina and I took the opportunity to pull all 120 feet of chain out of the chain locker to give it a wash and check over. We also washed out the chain locker while it was empty, and painted some markers on the chain so that we have an understanding of how much chain is out. Finally we restowed it all and checked the operation of the anchor winch.

What's next?  Well the liferaft and all of the inflatable PFD's are going away early next week for service and certification before we set off. The service mechanics are coming back on Tuesday for another go at completing their list,  and starting on the 1st of May, we will begin in earnest to gather provisions for the trip.

Next time I'll talk through the various bits of safety and rescue equipment we have on Endless Summer.

Until then,

Happy Boating,

Navman

Back off the Slip....

Today we brought Endless Summer back off the slip and back to her home jetty. She is all clean and polished, antifouled and the loo works again after we found a large oyster blocking the raw water inlet.

Slipping a vessel is a very old practice. The erudite Sea-Dog brought to my attention a passage written in 730BC  where the Greek poet Hesiod says:

"Haul up your ship upon the land, and pack it closely with stones all round to keep off the power of the winds....and draw out the bilge plug so that the rain of heaven may not rot it."

From this...

However, having your "ship upon the land" isn't really what boating is all about, and later in the same passage Hesiod continues:

"...wait until the season for sailing is come, and then haul your swift ship down to the sea and stow a convenient cargo in it, so that you may bring home profit...".

Well, our "season for sailing" is almost upon us, with only a few weeks to go before we finally head north in our "swift ship". I think that Endless Summer's "convenient cargo" will be some fishing gear and a few good bottles of red wine, and our "profit"  shall not be measured in dollars, but in the joy of being on a wide and beautiful ocean....

To this, check out the shiny new anode!

Tomorrow the boat mechanic is coming to do a service and for a final check of the engine alignment. We also need to check the generator which has become cranky lately when running unloaded. Hopefully it's nothing serious....

Until next time,

Navman

The Beginning.....

Hello from Navman, I'm a virgin blogger, so hang with me for a while as I get into the flow of the blog. I think it will be a good story to tell if I can get it all out. The aim of the blog will be to be both informative and amusing, and any comments or feedback are always welcome.

Today's blog is really just to set the scene for the story, so here's the outline:

Plot: One man's dream to sail his boat to the Great Barrier Reef.

Principal characters:

"Sea-Dog" - He's the boat owner (with his good wife Marina),  a raconteur, and the architect of the dream

"Captain Bligh" - Experienced skipper and man of the sea. He will be leading us on our merry (we hope) journey. He's a great skipper, but does like things done his way.

"Navman" - yours truly. Navigator, gadget man, comms officer, photographer and most importantly, cook.

"Endless Summer" - A 32 foot Caribbean motor cruiser

There are other characters, but I will introduce these as we progress.

The story so far.......

One morning a long time ago, Sea-Dog woke up and said to Marina  "Wouldn't it be great to have a boat we could take up to Port Douglas, and cruise around the Barrier Reef." Marina, ever supportive, agreed, and so the dream was born.

Flash forward 20 years, Sea-Dog and Marina have retired and are well positioned to fulfil the dream.....

House on the water - tick
Jetty for boat - tick
Suitable boat - tick
Formal boat training - in progress at the local TAFE
Crew - some ideas but nothing concrete


By great good fortune, Navman was also at TAFE, getting qualifications for use with Marine Rescue. Sea-Dog and Navman met and were immediately united in a common passion about boats and boating. There followed a year of preparation and training for the big trip north, some 1500 nautical miles from our river base on the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales, up to the ever-warm Port Douglas in sunny Far North Queensland.

We have had some sea trials down to the big bay south of us, anchoring practice in quiet roadsteads, overnighting on the boat with our good wives, and now we are making the final preparations. New electronics have been fitted by Matt, our  local boating electronics genius, so we now have DSC radios, AIS transponders, backup GPS chartplotters, and a high-tech comms system which gives us phone and internet wherever we go.

The boat went on the slip yesterday for its final antifouling (and to clear oysters from the raw water intake to the head (aka toilet to landlubbers). She is also having a polish, so she will be looking her resplendent best when we set off in a few weeks time.

Anyway, that's enough for today. I'll write again tomorrow when Endless Summer comes off the slip.

Happy boating,

Navman